Adult Spirituality Group Notes (6/13/10)

(11 participants)
Thanks to Charles Cressey Saturday delivery, everyone has received their books, "God Laugh & Plays" by David James Duncan, and have started to read the forward and preface.

There was general agreement that the author knows the relation between metaphors and compassion, e.g.:
"Unsaying the word of God"
"To define is to limit the unfathomable mystery of God. When very one names God, you give a slant and relationship."

There were two superb quotes that elicited discussion:
1. "Evangelism as embodied by Jesus does not remotely suggest the close-minded zeal of proselytizers claiming that only their interpretation of scripture prevents eternal punishments and pays eternal rewards: it implies, on the contrary, the kind of all-embracing love evident in Mother Teresa's prayer, "May God break my heart so completely that the whole world falls in." Not just her fellow nuns, Catholics, Calcuttans, potential converts. The whole world."

The whole world, for example, seemed to fall into the heart of Mahatma Gandhi. He repeatedly acted upon what his stated belief "I am a Christian, I am a Hindu, I am a muslim, I am a Jew."
(Author's Preface, xxv)

2. We the peoples of Earth, need a new cosmology that can effectivelyl embrace both our innate thirst for deeper, often obscured and intuited meanings as well as the necessary rigors of our intellectual life. We need a cosmology that can feed our souls and our questions about the meaning of life and death, while embracing the realities of our biological and ecological selves." (Forward, xi)

For next week (6/20): Please read Chapter 1, "Wonder; Yogi; Gladly" (p. 5-16)